The Art of Assist Hunting in La Liga

When EA Sports took over naming rights, they might as well have rebranded Spain’s top flight as “Through Ball Heaven.” This season’s assist leaders turned football into geometry class - acute angles only.

Methodology Madness

Using tracking data from Hawk-Eye and my custom machine learning model (trained on Xavi’s DNA), I graded each assist on:

• Difficulty (Was the passer facing the wrong way?)
• Creativity (Did it break physics?)
• Impact (Did the scorer barely need to move?)

The top 5 alone generated more Expected Gasping (xG) than my grandma watching telenovelas.

The Cream of the Crop

1. The Telepathic Through Ball - Frenkie de Jong’s 18-yard outside-of-the-boot pass that bent around three defenders like they were magnets with same polarity. My tracking software still shows their ankles spinning.

2. The False Nine Fakeout - Gavi’s dummy-turned-no-look-backheel that left the entire backline appealing for offside while Lewandowski tapped in. VAR needed a trigonometry degree to confirm it was legal.

Honorable Mentions:

• Bellingham’s rabona cross from the byline (87% completion chance according to my model…for NFL quarterbacks)
• Vinícius Jr.’s nutmeg assist…to himself off the referee

Want the full interactive viz with player movement patterns? Download my premium report - cheaper than Valverde’s release clause.